


Dimensions

by Flipdarkchill



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universes, Eventual Romance, M/M, Mind Games, Obsessive Behavior, Parallel Universes, Possessive Voldemort (Harry Potter), Stalking, Work In Progress, World Travel, Worlds
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 08:01:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21979984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flipdarkchill/pseuds/Flipdarkchill
Summary: The last thing Lord Voldemort expected when he died in the Battle of Hogwarts was to be sent into a series of alternate universes, jumping from one extreme to the next. The only comfort he finds in his rapidly changing surroundings is the only thing that seems to be constant: Harry Potter. Along with the slightly unnerving possibility that Potter is jumping too.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Harry Potter/Voldemort
Comments: 18
Kudos: 164





	1. Prologue

The first time Lord Voldemort saw the boy, he felt only rage. To see his enemy once again, the one who had _killed_ him, humiliated him, destroyed all of his horcruxes, sitting down at the Gryffindor table after his sorting…smiling so innocently, of all things… well, it had nearly caused the Dark Lord to curse him where he stood. But that was the first time, and Lord Voldemort knew better now. He would not underestimate the boy ever again, and therefore, studied his eleven-year-old nemesis while subtly gathering information about where he was.

“Riddle, Tom!” Minerva McGonagall called from the front of the Great Hall, and so he strode forward from the line of first years, not entirely sure what would happen if he did not follow the ‘rules’ of this bizarre version of Hogwarts where he should not exist. 

He barely sat on the stool before the hat yelled “SLYTHERIN”, reminding him of his original sorting so very long ago. The table clapped, if only mildly, and he only had the presence of mind to allow his peers to sneer the word ‘mudblood’ simply because he was still observing his surroundings in a quiet contemplation.

If he had to guess where he was, it was the early 1990’s— most likely Harry Potter’s first year at Hogwarts. But it was different. Startling so. Most obviously, Lord Voldemort himself was present in the body of his youth, Tom Riddle. Which should not be possible in any sense of the world. And no one seemed to know who he was. Curiously, no one seemed to know Harry Potter either. When he studied the staff table, Quirrell was missing too, where Voldemort knew his parasitic self would have been if this were simply the case of time travel.

Dumbledore, of course, was there as well. It irked him to see the old man still alive, but it was no stranger than anything else in his current predicament. 

But the strangest thing of all was that Lord Voldemort was certain he should be dead. If he strained his memory enough… he could remember drifting in a place of infinite darkness for an undetermined period of time, before he was suddenly thrust into this…whatever _this_ was.

But the Dark Lord knew he wasn’t dead. He knew it as instinctively as he knew how to breathe. He felt as alive as he’d ever been, maybe even more so because his soul now felt fully intact, pure and whole in his eleven-year-old body where he had not yet committed to the quest for immortality.

He dismissed the possibility of a dream too— it was far too real, too nauseatingly familiar from his own school years; from the food that lay before him, to the fabric of his robes, to the irritating chatter of children that filled his ears and forcibly reminded him of the orphanage. 

No, Lord Voldemort did not know how he had come to be here…but he was determined to find out.


	2. Chapter 2

The next day followed similarly to the previous one, only with classes and annoying little children who wouldn’t stop _talking_ about the most mundane of things to ever exist. Lord Voldemort, or rather, Tom Riddle, as he now looked, had woken up to this false reality once more after falling asleep in the Slytherin dormitories— he had been mildly of the idea that perhaps it _was_ a dream after all, and if so, then surely when he went to bed, he wouldn’t wake up to this half-a-nightmare ever again. Yet awake he did, and only to find his sneering housemates had set up a pathetically weak ward to keep themselves ‘clean from the mud’, or some other vulgar thing in reference to himself. But Lord Voldemort merely smiled as he broke the ward with a single thought, his magic thankfully responding to him as it always had. He would show them their rightful place soon enough. It would be rather fun, to torment his new roommates into compliant little things, who would only be so eager to do the bidding of a ‘mudblood’.

At breakfast, he sat at the end of the table, and didn’t mind the separation from his peers— it only made his view of the Gryffindor table that much clearer.

Harry Potter made quick friends, it seemed. He watched, mildly interested, in the way Potter engaged with his roommates, showing off his timetable, and talking energetically about something or another with people on both his left and right. He vaguely recognized the Weasley boy with his flaming red hair, and the Longbottom boy who sat beside Potter. Then their eyes met, and Voldemort hastily looked away— he did not yet know if he should confront Potter or not. On the one hand, it would answer his questions on whether the boy knew this reality was false. It would answer whether Potter was like him— retaining memories of their previous life, or if he just another eleven-year-old who knew nothing of Lord Voldemort’s wrath.

He decided to play it safe, for now, and so went along with his peers down to the dungeons for potions class. Perhaps it would even be fun, the Dark Lord smirked, as he recalled his talents for magic in school. He would outclass his peers on his very first day, of that, Lord Voldemort felt sure.

However, his mind stuttered to a grinding halt when the professor of potions made his way to the front of the class. Ah yes, how could he forget? _Severus Snape._ The traitor. If Potter had been correct, if his humiliation and defeat had been the direct cause of Severus’s double edged play, if Potter was right and he had been fooled for _years_ …

The traitor decided to do roll call first, sneering at every child’s name, and although the moment was so minuscule, so vague if one did not know the man before him, Severus Snape paused just before he read the name “Potter”, but then continued on as if nothing had happened. However, when the man started to recite how potions were made, Lord Voldemort was as surprised as any when the man suddenly stopped himself and shouted at Potter to answer seemingly random questions.

“I don’t know sir.” Potter said sullenly, but Lord Voldemort thought he caught a hint of amusement in the boy’s tone. After failing to answer the professor’s questions, Harry Potter decided to give his muggle-born friend a chance, who was waving her hand energetically in the air, but Severus simply dismissed the both of them with a sneer and loss of house points.

When the man sent them all to try their hand at a simple brew, Lord Voldemort had to admit—the man was a horrible teacher. He shouted at Potter whenever he got the chance, took points off for Longbottom nearly botching his entire cauldron, and even sneering at _him_ while simultaneously giving points for the perfect rendition of the potion.

Draco Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy’s son, was there as well, and the man seemed almost to favour the boy and him alone. No one could have brewed the potion better than Lord Voldemort, yet even so Severus only gave him the barest of points while giving the Malfoy heir a total of fifteen points by the time the lesson was over. It irked him, for some odd reason, to be less than favoured. It irked him even more knowing what he did about the traitor who had been loyal to Dumbledore all along.

By the time lunch rolled around, however, Lord Voldemort was fed up with pretending to be a well-mannered, eleven year old student. He dismissed those who attempted to talk to him, sent Draco Malfoy a particularly painful curse that erupted into harsh boils whenever he so much as mentioned _his father,_ and directed a few imperio curses at his fellow roommates to stalk Potter and see what he was up to.

It had nearly worked too. But just as Lord Voldemort was headed outside to Herbology class, the world shifted, and then changed. 


	3. Chapter 3

One moment Lord Voldemort was walking to the greenhouses for class with the Hufflepuffs, and the next he was walking down the Hogwarts stairs, sixteen, and in formal dress robes. 

At first he stopped walking, as the Dark Lord did not know what had just happened. It was almost like the first time, when his consciousness appeared quite suddenly during the sorting. If the thought unnerved him, that he had no memory up until this specific point in time, he did not show it. Indeed, if the Dark Lord was fearful that at any given moment, time could slip out of his hands, that memories could be erased, that time itself could weave a reality that should not be possible, he did not show it. Instead, he resumed his pace, walking carefully down the corridor and the next flight of stairs. His deduction was this: it was late in the evening, he was dressed in formal attire, and therefore, it was more than likely that some sort of event was being held in the Great Hall.

When Lord Voldemort arrived in the entrance hall, the double doors of the Great Hall were open, and students wandered in and out, with many more congested inside. But once the Dark Lord saw the wintery decorations, the formal and expensive tables and chairs, the few Durmstrang students in brown and the feminine girls from Beauxbatons in faint blue, he knew immediately what this was: the Triwizard Tournament Yuletide Ball.

As Lord Voldemort entered the scene he had only known from the memories of Barty Crouch Jr, Tom Riddle, as he looked, watched from the sidelines as the three Triwizard champions strode in: Cedric Diggory, Fleur Delacour, and Viktor Krum. They waltzed with their partners to the classical music, and soon enough everyone else joined in with the traditional wizarding dance.

But it was wrong. Harry Potter should have been a champion as well. Lord Voldemort had made certain it so. And yet, he wasn’t, and the boy was lost in a sea of dancers and people. How curious indeed.

As he scoured the hall for Potter with his eyes, watching from a distant corner, he finally spotted the boy dancing with a red-haired girl and laughing, greatly amused, with his friends. The Dark Lord felt irritated at the sight—if Potter did know something, and was indeed pretending he did not, he was sure he would strangle him by the throat.

But Lord Voldemort had more pressing matters to attend to. He knew of no magic that could change the world, where Tom Riddle should not exist as a sixteen year old boy. He knew of no power that could be capable of this—or maybe he _had_ died after all, and this was fate’s cruelest joke to play?

He dismissed the idea though, because the Dark Lord still felt alive and whole. Interesting indeed, as he was sure his sixteen year old self had already created at least one horocrux—the diary, if his memory served him correctly.

No, Lord Voldemort would not stay here and watch Potter amuse himself with his friends. It was irritating enough that the Dark Lord had no idea what was happening to him. He needed to search the library for himself. Find out any and all information that could possibly make this happen. So he slipped out of the dance entirely unnoticed, and headed to the only place where the information likely rested: the restricted section of the Hogwarts library, his old home.

* * *

It was past midnight, and the Dark Lord had not found anything worthwhile as to what could be happening. However many books he read on the subject of time travel, or alternate dimensions, the limited resources proved incapable of answering his questions. The second topic he pursued in the library, however, proved a vast amount of interesting theories, but only brought forth more questions than answers. Apparently, in this world, Harry Potter did not exist in any textbook or indeed, any Dark Arts book that covered the topic of the killing curse. When Lord Voldemort read the latest newsprints, he found only three Triwizard tournament profiles, while Potter’s was mysteriously missing. It seemed, for all intents and purposes, that in this world, Harry Potter was not famous. 

And as much as it angered him, it appeared that Lord Voldemort did not exist as well. When he searched for any news concerning himself, the Dark Lord found nothing—no mention of his war, no mention of his past—except, of course, Tom Riddle.

In a time when Tom Riddle should not be sixteen years old, he, apparently, was. And apparently, he still lived in an orphanage. His mother had died, and his father was missing, if not already dead by his hand. But when he searched for Potter’s parents, however, perhaps none too surprising, he found them still alive and taking care of their son. 

The Dark Lord did not know what any of it meant. Was he trapped in some alternate dimension where nothing was as it seemed?

When Lord Voldemort tired of searching through the various bookcases and newspapers, he headed down to the Slytherin dormitories to go back to bed. He did not know the password, but such things were trivial in the face of his magic. When he saw four unfamiliar faces in the dormitory beds, the Dark Lord wondered whether he was still the undeniable ruler of Slytherin house, or if he was just another face in the crowd.

But as he went to sleep that night and closed his eyes, he did not think of any of those things. Instead, he kept picturing Potter dancing with the Weasley girl, and laughing with his friends. 


End file.
